Australian Financial Review chief political correspondent

The federal government's hope that the royal commission into child sexual abuse would have maximum powers of inquiry has diminished with Victoria and Western Australia declining to hold joint commissions while NSW is still undecided. Neither state government has given a clear reason for their refusal to establish a joint commission other than the commission was a federal government initiative and therefore the federal government should own it and pay for it. South Australia, the largest Labor state, is also non-committal, its Attorney-General, John Rau, saying his government was ''happy to co-operate with the royal commission'' but ''as it is a Commonwealth inquiry, funding is therefore a Commonwealth issue''.